What are they called? I’m sure I knew this, but I can’t remember and it’s driving me mad as such inconsequential things sometimes do. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any good English examples – in German both Dachboden and Boden on its own mean the same thing: attic. I would have thought it’s a word ending in -onym, but wikipedia’s rather extensive list does not seem to mention it.
I may have just imagined that there is a word for this, however.
I’ve no idea what the linguistic term might be, however flammable and inflammable is a good English example.
Boden doesn’t normally mean attic, that’s just a shortened form of Dachboden. So Dachboden is specifically only attic, while Boden can mean ground, floor, base, bottom, etc.
Yes, that’s precisely what I mean, thanks.
Actually, I believe that Boden is the older term, the Dach- (roof-) was later prepended to distinguish it from the ‘floor’ meaning, not that it matters much.
Seemingly random aside: HMHW, are you Indian by any chance?
No, I’m German, actually. Why?
It was my understanding that flammable is something that burns, while inflammable is something that emits fumes that also will ignite. So paper is flammable, but gasoline is inflammable. Very similar, but discrete difference in meaning. Am I wrong in this?
Bathtub, quagmire, taxicab and pussycat can all be broken in two with either half retaining the same meaning as the full word.
If the short version is formed from an earlier long version, the process is called clipping. I don’t know what you’d call it if the long form is an elaboration of an earlier short form.
I work with a bunch of India guys and they tend to use words like “prepended”, “prepone”, etc that make logical sense but aren’t used much (or a part of) American English.
I’m with you on all of those except “quag.”
Admittedly not used as often as “mire”, but still.
Words that retain their meaning if you chop off a part
If I chopped off a part, I can think of a number of old, emphatic swear words I would yell, that have retained their meaning – and been employed in similar circumstances – for a very long time.
As a serious answer, how about “proactive” (meaning, “doing something”) and “active” (meaning, “doing something” but the speaker is not as pretentious).
I thought pussycat was specifically a female cat, as tomcat is specifically a male cat.
The normal sense of proactive is that it is something done specifically before the necessity arrives. If you cut carbon emissions you are being proactive about climate change, but building dikes when the water rises is active.
I don’t know of any dictionary support for this. A pussycat is a generic cat.
There are lots of words in English that are shortened from an earlier form, as bus is from omnibus and auto is from automobile but that’s not strictly what the OP asks for.
Speaking of swear words, calling someone by either half of MF gets the point across.
Would “blossom” and “bloom” be an English example of what you’re talking about?
I suppose it’s possible that some group, somewhere, sometime, decided to use these two words that way, but it’s certainly not common practice and I’ve never even heard of it in any health, safety, or emergency response context.
Clearly distinct words such as ‘flammable’, ‘combustible’ and ‘explosive’ are often given particular (differing) technical definitions in emergency response contexts, but not ‘flammable’ vs ‘inflammable’.
I think halfMANhalfWIT has it’s own qualities…:dubious: